I woke up in a cold sweat, breathing hard. I wasn’t on the sidewalk anymore, that much was true. My backpack was gone. I was on the edge of a forest, a weird forest. A forest with magenta pine trees and blue grass covering the ground.

I lost my temper and I screamed. Is this some kind of stupid stunt? I thought. If it is, these are bad special effects. I am not going in there.

A hard wind blew at my back but I dug in my heels. My caramel-colored hair was being whipped around my face. I saw faces in the whirling wind: Women, men and children, especially children. An image appeared in my head. The dragon with the peach book, except this time the book was open. Writing in another language scrawled the pages. The people in the wind were being sucked into the book, clawing at the podium and trying to get away from the vortex. The image burned into my mind like hot metal.

I broke out of the trance. My big, green eyes grew even bigger. I screamed and jumped four feet strait up into the air. I knew what it all meant. The book was sucking those innocent peoples’ souls into it; I don’t know why and I don’t know how, but my job was to stop it. I ran into the forest and hit a rock wall.

Not much of a forest, I thought. I looked up; the rock wall was a cliff and where was the cave? Bingo. There it was.

Thankfully, the ivy that I saw covering the entrance to the cave was very, very long and thick too; I could easily climb it. So I did. I got to the top quickly.

I stood there, pushed away the ivy and grunted in frustration; rocks. Rocks covered the entrance. I almost lost my temper. A scream was boiling up inside me like soup.

I turned and saw a shadowy figure; the figure that passed over me in my vision; the figure of my English teacher, Mrs. Trekler. She was my role model, my favorite teacher, the person I looked up to. I only saw her for a second but I was sure it was her; no one’s hair is that blonde except hers. She was leaning against a shovel; she smiled and winked and then she was gone.

I quickly ran and picked up the shovel; I ran back and pried some smaller rocks out of the wall with it; I’m kind of strong so that helped. Suddenly I heard voices again; I peered through the large gap in the wall. I saw the wind people, mouths closed but whispering; no, thinking, I could hear them thinking. That explains why I heard Chrysantha whispering; she was thinking. Come; follow, this way, they called. Now I knew I was in the right place. I clambered through the hole and was concealed in darkness. I struck a match and held it up high; a torch was on my left. I lit that and blew out the match. I walked down a rocky passage way.
Suddenly I was in a room; the room to be exact. The room in my vision. The dragon loomed over me like a storm. The book was in my grasp. I reached out and something slapped my hand away; knocking the torch out of it in the process. “Ouch!” I cried.

Something smacked me hard across my face. The entire right side of my face went numb. Great, an invisible opponent, I thought.

I tuned just in time to see Mrs. Trekler again. This time she was holding a knife; she tossed it and I caught it. She evaporated. I turned to face my opponent and felt a hard punch in the stomach. All the air that was in my lungs left with a whoosh. I was left gasping and sputtering on the floor. I stood up, with difficulty. I swung with the knife in the general direction the hit came from. A hand grabbed my wrist and yanked, hard. I fell to the ground. My ankle throbbed where I fell on it. I was so close to losing my temper right before he hit me in the stomach; so now I was mad. I swung the knife. I hit something! Finally, I thought. Something wet was seeping though my shoe where the invisible man fell. Gross! I thought.
I walked towards the dragon and his eyes flew open. They were icy blue and they glowed. He saw me and started to uncoil his body from around the podium, leaving the book unguarded. It was still open; the screams of those people as they were sucked in the book will forever be in my mind. I hesitated; I was afraid of closing the book on some innocent kid’s head. I took a big breath. I lunged for the book but his tail whipped back around and smacked me hard in the stomach again, like it didn’t already hurt from the mean invisible man. For a third time I fell to the floor. I sat there for a second while the dragon watched me with his glowing eyes. I waited and waited and waited but no Mrs. Trekler appeared. I slowly stood up. That was it; I had held my temper in long enough. I raised my knife over my head and through it as hard as I could at him. It bounced, bent and broken off of his scales. He seemed to snicker.

Fury blinded me. He dared to laugh at me? I was trying to kill him and then steal what he was protecting! I was so mad and frustrated and confused that I ran at him and tried to defeat him by hitting and kicking; it didn’t work. I was so angry that I actually thought that I was strong enough to at least intimidate him enough to make him back off.

He batted me away with his paw so hard that I actually went flying across the room and hit the wall. My wrist bent at an awkward angle. I fell, for the last time, to the floor. A tear ran down my face as I cradled my wrist. I sat there for a long time even after the pain subsided into a less painful throbbing. The dragon became curious and lumbered over to take a closer look at me. I saw my chance. Since it was obvious that I had failed in killing the dragon, I put another plan into action. I jumped up, ran around the dragon and grabbed the book. I tore out of the room as fast as I could possibly go. A horrible roar echoed eerily off the rocky tunnel walls. The tunnel was a lot longer than I remembered it. Note to self: Control temper, I thought.

I ran, and I ran, and I ran but I still couldn’t see the boulders that covered the entrance to the cave and the answer to all of my problems. I sat down on the dirt floor with the book firmly in my hand. I was breathing heavily from running so far and from lack of oxygen due to the dusty air in the tunnels.
I felt something tickle my arm and I glanced down quickly. A butterfly had landed on me. It was golden, pure gold, I mean as golden as gold can possibly be. His long antennas were silver. He glowed faintly in the light. I was surprisingly calm with him sitting there on my arm. I barely even noticed him changing form, taking a new shape. His beautiful wings turned slowly black and his eyes glowed red. His antenna shortened and long fangs grew in his mouth. He hissed at me and walked up my arm towards me. Down the tunnel I saw a big, black blotch and I heard a buzzing sound. Then hundreds of them appeared and swarmed all around me. They landed on me everywhere and I screamed. An ear piercing scream that shattered even my ear drums. I was getting mad. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, I thought. Anger roared through me. Calm down, I told myself. Your temper gets you nowhere. So I calmed down and ran down the hall again. A couple of them peeled away from me while I ran. I finally found the entrance to the stupid cave.
I jumped through the hole in the rocks that I had made a short while ago. It felt like a lifetime ago. I ran across the cliff face and jumped off the edge of a cliff, maybe five stories up. Wind roared in my ears. I realized that all of the butterflies had been whipped off of me. I looked back to see the last of them, opening their wings and flying away, thinking nasty thoughts. I smiled; then I remembered that I was still falling; probably to my death. I turned and saw the ivy that I climbed earlier that day, swaying in the breeze. I wanted to scream in frustration and fear but I kept my cool. I raised my arms and lunged.

“Yes!” I cried; a direct hit. I grabbed the ivy and hung on. I swung on it like it was a vine and I was a monkey. I let go and flew about six feet before I landed on my feet. “That was so cool!!” I said.
I recovered quickly from my near death experience. I ran through the really, really small forest. Oddly colored shrubs and bushes smacked me with their branches. I stopped to rest for a second and catch my breath. I was standing in a clearing. A purple deer ran across my path quickly. I was sore all over and I couldn’t feel my limbs. All of a sudden, my eyelids felt heavy and then I collapsed on the forest floor.

I woke up to Mom pounding on my door. At first I was relieved because I thought it was all a dream. I was in my room, in my house. “Wake up!” my mom yelled through my door “I don’t have time for this! Do you hear me? Get up!” Then she started thinking. That stupid girl is work and that’s all she is. There’s nothing special about her in any way. She is just a pain.
I sighed. There’s nothing like mother’s love, I thought. I’d stand up to her later. I smiled.
I realized that I was holding something. I glanced down. I covered my mouth but a scream still escaped. I threw the peach colored book across my room. It hit the wall and fell to the floor. I stood up, breathing hard. I walked over to it as it lay there. Something wet and black was seeping out of it and onto my carpet. “Ink,” I said. That’s what it was, ink. A gust of strong, hard wind exploded out of the book’s cover, knocking me over. The wind people went rushing by me, they were free. I had freed them. I did it! I thought. I felt like jumping for joy but I had problems of my own to fix. I grabbed my sweater and my backpack (which appeared on my bed magically) and headed out the door.
I got to school just in time to see Chrysantha and Catalina go into their first class, which happened to be my first class too. I walked in to the English classroom and sat down, Mrs. Trekler wasn’t there yet. Was she actually helping me on the quest or was it my imagination? I didn’t know. That was when the double demons (Chrysantha and Catalina in case you didn’t know) walked up to me.
“Wow, Caddy,” Chrysantha said “Where did you get that sweater? Ugly R Us?” They laughed.
You know when I said that I had troubles of my own to fix? I meant that if I learned anything from this stupid quest it’s that I shouldn’t lose my temper or bottle it up either. Just keep your cool. I needed to stick up for myself, and that’s why I said this: “Wow you guys! I’ve heard better insults from a sandwich and they don’t talk much! “Why are you two so mean to everyone?! Stop being rude or I will do something about it! I’m speaking for everyone here!” They crossed their arms over their chests and hurried away. They sat down and glared at me from across the room. I never gave them another thought.
Mrs. Trekler stepped into the classroom. “Sit down everyone!” she said “Open to page thirty two in your books. Take out your homework so I can check it.” She looked at me and winked. I smiled.